Flatbed transport vehicles and trailers transport payloads that need to be covered to protect the cargo from the sun, rain, snow, dust and the like. It is common practice to use a heavy sturdy tarpaulin cover which is releasably secured to the transport vehicles and is repeatedly reused to cover various cargo typically transported on flat bed vehicles. Because of the weight of the tarpaulin cover, manual installation and removal requires the services of several men and it is a time consuming operation and physically demanding. A proposed power operated tarping apparatus is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 6,502,709.